Stealth cuts of £2 billion cripple NHS - report

Hospitals in England are being hit by “stealth cuts” of more than £2 billion ($3.03 billion) since 2010 according to new research, blaming the cuts for "rapidly deteriorating" hospitals’ finances.

Tariffs – hospital price payments per procedure, fixed by the
National Health Service (NHS) – have been massively reduced in
the past five years according to research carried out by the
False Economy think tank, which was commissioned by the TUC and Unison. And those tariffs are where
two-thirds of English hospitals' income comes from, the study
adds.

The research found that one of four elective procedures, such as
treatment for blood poisoning or diabetes, have had their tariffs
slashed by more than 40 percent since 2010.

By examining 138 NHS procedures, the researchers found that
between 2010 and 2015 hospitals suffered an income loss amounting
to £70 million ($106).

Some treatments suffered cuts of 85 percent, including leukemia,
asthma and sickle cell anemia, while cash for conditions like
tuberculosis and glaucoma had been reduced by more than 70
percent and conditions like septicemia and kidney stones have had
the amount given to them reduced by more than half.

When applied across all 4,500 tariffs, which make up most of the
funding given to hospitals, the cuts amounted to more than £2
billion ($3.03 billion) over five years, making a mockery of the
government’s claim that funding for the NHS has been ring fenced.

“These stealth cuts may have been largely hidden from the
public eye, but the effects are grave. The NHS is in a rapidly
deteriorating financial position, with hospital finances in steep
decline,” said Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary, in a
statement.

Dr. Mark Porter, the head of the British Medical Association,
said that the reductions in tariffs are part of a wider problem
of cost cutting in the NHS.

“Cutting hospital tariffs causes real hardship for NHS
services which are already struggling under rising patient
demand, especially from an ageing population. This will push NHS
organizations further into deficit, making a mockery of claims to
have protected the NHS from cuts,” he told the Independent.

However, the NHS insisted that funding is going up rather than
down.

“Rather than being cut, hospital funding in England has gone
up, rising over the past three years from £49 billion to over £56
billion, a real terms increase of 9 percent,” said an NHS
spokesman in a statement.

A spokesman for the Conservatives also insisted that hospitals
had seen an increase in their budgets.

“Getting efficiency from the tariff is an important part of
driving better value for taxpayers from the NHS, which is why it
has been the policy of successive governments. Hospitals have
seen real-terms increases in their budgets this Parliament, and
unlike Ed Miliband, we’re committing to the £8 billion the NHS
says it needs to transform community care,” he said.

However, NHS providers, like organizations providing mental
health and ambulance services, are opposed to the cuts in
tariffs.

“It is now widely accepted that 2015/16 will be the most
difficult financial year for the NHS in its recent history,”
they warned in January, according to the Independent.